Ever wonder what all those sneaky little fees are doing on your phone bill. Well guess what, it’s the telecom companies playing paddy cake with the FCC and other government agencies. More subsidies for the one percent. Here’s a good piece from AlterNet by David Rosen and Bruce Kushnick.

As a New Year’s present to its subscribers, Verizon Wireless announced a plan to start charging a $2 “convenience fee” for payments subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit or debit cards.

To Verizon’s chagrin, and in the spirit of the spreading Occupy Wall Street movement, people across the country railed against the new fee. Molly Katchpole, who had led a campaign against Bank of America’s effort to impose a $5-per-month fee for debit-card use, kickstarted an online petition against the Verizon fee on Change.org. The petition generated nearly 100,000 signatures and pushed Verizon to drop the new fee.